Friday, January 13, 2012

A Three Hour Mural, A Three Hour Mural

Don't worry, that is as far as I will go with the Gilligan's Island mural themed lyrics, but just know that a part of me didn't care what you thought and wanted to take it all the way.

If you find yourself in a rush to do a silhouette mural and don't have one of those fancy overhead projectors, then size out the picture in Visio or Photoshop and have them print it at Kinko's on the large format printers for less than $10 for a few feet.

My 7th grade math teacher used the fancy overhead projector all the time. It was awesome, because he spit a lot when he spoke (even more when he yelled) and you could see his little drool dollups soak into the dry erase marker on the math problems. It kept me interested.

Cut out the silhouette and position it on the wall where you would like it.

Then trace. Hey! Take that back. Tracing is not cheating. If you have the skill and desire to free-hand your 3-hour adolescent boy wall mural then go ahead. If I would have tried that in my time window, you would have found me sobbing and pounding the floor under a wall riddled with pencil holes and alligator tears.

Getting the hand that held the lightening as I wanted took long enough.

Then paint the outline of your sketch.

Then add lightening and more lightening. And then some more lightening.

Then fill it like a delicious jelly donut.

When you get sick of painting the inside and want to take a break, just stop and think about that time the 7th grade math teacher realized that you hadn't finished your homework and covered the projector with his rage saliva while he berated you and your lackluster ambition.

Then start painting frantically again.

Do two plus coats of Glo-It on the lightening parts.

It's OK. Go ahead and embrace those thoughts of painting on glow in the dark undergarments to reveal later in your rock star fantasy. Then realize that now is not the time nor the place. Try and keep it classy for at least 3 hours, Floozy.

Then marvel...and hope...and plead that the recipient likes it. Because, you aren't going to get those three hours back.

Just like you aren't getting back those feelings of self-worth that you lost in the 7th grade.